Sunday, 25 August 2019

Actions and reactions


August 25, 2019

Thanks to everyone who offered me their support on Facebook when I launched this blog on Friday. And, as I said at the outset, I really don't want this to be viewed as a bitter, ‘poor me’ project but a reference point for those facing a hearing at 11 Riverside Drive, Dundee.

What I was going to do here was simply post the online Decision on my case that you can find on the SSSC website.

But that doesn't really provide any information on my side of the story so, adopting the ethos of that hit from my childhood "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to", allow me some self indulgence here to tell you my side, before reading the formal version which I'll post right after this.

It really does need to be separate because it is very long.

Unless there is a news reporter at your hearing, it is very unlikely that your side of the case will be given equal billing to the 'prosecution' version and that's an issue I can't really advise on. But that may now be academic. The SSSC has just announced it is planning a major overhaul of the hearing system, which, in a nutshell, seems set to be remodelled as an almost appeal process over the official decision.

While that's to be applauded, unfortunately for me it's a bit overdue. The SSSC states: "Our analysis shows that when the worker hasn’t engaged with the fitness to practise process, the outcome of the hearing is the same as what we initially proposed."

Well, seems I was a freak of the statistical norm given I had 18 months of Conditions, No Conditions, Conditions, then a three-day hearing culminating in me being struck off and declared a danger to the public in Scotland, the UK and across the EU.

That is a remarkable ascent in notoriety, and a remarkable descent in character and personality.

So before you read the warning that went out, and is still there, to the 513,000,000 European citizens, I was a social worker for 30 years. I found it a challenging, demanding but intrinsically rewarding career.

Focusing on children and families, there were highs and lows, successes and failures but the drive never diminished in trying my best to help those who needed our profession’s support to find their own way through the turbulence life can inflict on every one of us.

Having shared the impact of drug deaths and AIDS, families disintegrating, lost wee souls desperate for love, puts my personal circumstances into perspective.

And while I would find it more constructive to share my thoughts on a profession now gasping for resources to cope with the increasing demands placed upon it by an austerity-driven political agenda, my views would be worthless.

Fifteen months  have now passed since I received what is probably a social worker’s greatest humiliation – being 'struck off', removed from the Scottish Council of Social Service’s register.

My case did make the headlines, albeit in a very small way.

You will see the formal epilogue to my career on the official Decision that follows this  – an egocentric liar who put children at risk so I could concentrate on my managerial administrative duties, and blamed a caring, supportive and benevolent management network in a national children’s charity for my shortcomings, inventing a tale of harassment, criticism and bullying to cover my inadequacies as a professional and as a person.

That’s a pretty damning finale to a career, and didn't leave me with much dignity.

There was no way I could formally challenge that summation; I didn't have the information to challenge the processes within the timeline and after two years without a salary I didn't have the money to hire legal representation. And, of course, I am certainly not using this blog to prove my innocence in all accusations. If my profession demands that 'sentence' for my actions then I accept that.

But my mitigation is that for every action there is a reaction. The SSSC case was that my actions precipitated the situation that led to my removal from the register. My case was that the actions of my employers resulted in my omissions and commissions and the allegations against me.

While I must accept the final decision of the SSSC panel,  this is the only chance I have to include my side of the story, omitted from that 5000-word decision against me.

The overriding priority throughout my career and in its post mortem has always been the welfare of service users and, for most of those years, these service users were vulnerable children and their carers.

What I find most offensive about the decision made against me is the statement that on three occasions I jeopardised the welfare of two children so I could focus on my managerial role with the charity while those all around me dedicated themselves to the service users.

Anyone who knows me will see that as laughable. The truth is the children were always my priority and any neglect I was responsible for was in the administration. Did I do things by the book? No. I admit that. But did I ever put a child at risk? Never!

That breaks my fundamental code.

According to the SSSC, I invented a pressurised scenario of constantly working on and revising business plans, dealing with financial issues, trying to deliver on non-achievable promises made to outside funding organisations, sourcing new premises and filling and moving boxes and boxes of paper and office equipment?

I should have shouted louder that I wasn't coping; I should have ensured my concerns were recorded. Without that formal record, it is easy to dismiss the situation as nothing more than fantasy.

But if there is one good thing that has come out from my hearing and my case, it’s that the charity has vowed on record and in a legal setting that good childcare practice takes precedent over absolutely everything. There is no pressure on its managers to re-align their focus if there are active childcare issues, and there is 100 per cent support for that priority.

I genuinely welcome that, but I didn’t experience that philosophy. My working with children and families was never under scrutiny, this ‘business’ side of the charity always seemed to be the issue that was top of the agenda. Apparently for 10 years I had that wrong.

I took my role with the charity very seriously – I was entrusted with managing two projects, co-wrote a practice manual, dealt with STV and the BBC to publicise its work. It wasn’t just my professional life, it became my whole life.

I had eight line managers in 10 years, and gaps where I had no support at all (the last one for almost a year). The organisation I worked for had five different chief executives, and at least four directors of children and families, as well as two restructures in that time. That in itself surely underlines a period of turmoil. Outside of work and running parallel to all that my father was lost to Alzheimer’s, my mother to numerous strokes and subsequent degeneration, and then my younger brother to cancer.

I’m sure many will relate to the treadmill of work, work and work. I’m ashamed to admit that the very second my mother slipped away, my phone rang. I was still holding her hand but being checked on by new line manager No 7 whether I would complete work on the report for STV’s Children’s Appeal while on compassionate leave. 

I remember returning to work after mum's death and was surprised to be greeted by an atmosphere of jollity. My manager hadn't told the team of my loss. Why did I not see the writing on the wall at this point?

As the pressure mounted at work I found it increasingly difficult to cope and my working life seemed to become an endless circle of harassment and criticism.

During that time I fell behind with the bread and butter work and was forced to take administrative shortcuts - there was no backfill for the hundreds of hours spent on the practice manual for example . It seemed to me that management involvement of protection issues stopped at me and with me, unlike business plans.

And when I finally crashed and went off sick, these shortcomings would emerge. One case of a particular family was active with frontline social workers closely involved – I knew what was happening, verbal communication with those involved was ongoing, pretty much on a daily basis, and my insistence that workers recorded every concern about that family was my ultimate downfall and, yes, my recording was poor.

My failures ultimately led to my departure from the charity.

But, of course, I accept this is only my version of events. My fitness to practise hearing would judge most, if not all, of  that version was total fiction and fabrication, at least in terms of it having any impact on my performance.

My last two managers both emphasised their care, support and compassion for all staff. For some reason I did not respond to this atmosphere and culture of benign, maternalistic management.

As they told the panel, I was, simply, not very good at my job and showed no regard for the children and the families we supported.

I wasn’t represented at my hearing and was mentally stumbling about when these two managers, both of whom I had cited for their lack of support and harassment, were called as witnesses against me. Their mutual corroboration was taken as confirmation of my delusion.

At one point, one was telling the panel how she had trawled through the reports of all her predecessors - none of whom was called as a witness -  simply to find a criticism of my performance. She found what she was looking for, just one - a report I had to write in a hurry and was, I admit, pretty poor.

“Did you find anything good?” I enquired.

“I wasn’t looking for anything good,” came the response.

In her witness statement she also alluded to her suspicion that I had issues in my personal life that she never 'got to the bottom of'. She was, in fact, right. My brother was dying, slowly and in great pain; he was the single father of a four-year-old. 

If this caring, supportive manager was aware of this, she never asked once how I was coping.

After the Decision, I’ll move on to the actual hearing next. And, I promise, that will be less about me and more about what you can expect.

Next: https://ssscandme.blogspot.com/2019/08/registrant-1104254-disgrace-to.html

Picture: Gerd Altmann





















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